


Wakandan Interlude

by Avaaricious



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Prelude Comic (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Black Panther (2018) Post-Credits Scene, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Established Relationship, M/M, Nomad Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 15:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14524044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avaaricious/pseuds/Avaaricious
Summary: Each day had a different goal, but the same over-reaching purpose: To keep his routine, learn how to belong, how to give back. To live as best he could. To love as best he could.Set in the space between Bucky's defrosting in Wakanda and his entrance in Infinity War.





	Wakandan Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my goodness. So, IW was soul crushing. I saw it twice on opening day and it was harrowing. 
> 
> A few days ago I started wondering about those snippets of Bucky we saw in Wakanda. He looked healthy, and healing. 
> 
> I also wondered about the greeting Steve gave Bucky in Wakanda, which certainly wasn't an 'I've not seen you since you went into cryo' greeting. I speculate that Steve has been to Wakanda a number of times between Bucky's voluntary cryo and this point. 
> 
> I have NO idea if there are similar fics out there right now, I've been to busy to read too much post IW stuff, but I hope you like this little slice of life, I guess you might call it?

There was something about tossing hay bales that was stupidly satisfying.

 

Bucky had been -- from what he remembered -- a city boy most of his life. His family moved from Indiana to New York when he was too young to recall. He never did anything that resembled camping or roughing it from then on until boot camp, and then the war.

 

After that...

 

After that doesn't bear much thinking about, nor does it resemble where he is and what he does now.

 

Post cryo and an intense de-triggering process, Bucky was given the use of a little house in the middle of an expanse of impossibly-green land. It wasn't like any house he'd ever known before, but that's what it was.

 

And gradually, as he sat cross-legged in it and thought and meditated and healed, it became less of a house, and more of a home.

 

The king's clever sister told him she was working on a new arm for him, but he said there was no rush.

 

It only took a week for the local children to find him, but at least a month before the bravest got close enough to peep in the door. Bright eyes watched him as he did his best to greet them in Xhosa. They laughed and told him his accent was terrible. In English.

 

They called him ‘White Wolf’. It was a terrible nickname, but there was nothing to do except laugh. After that, he couldn't chase them away, not even if he wanted to.

 

Curious fingers poked at his pale skin with wonder. They asked about his arm, his scars. Bucky imparted that he had been hurt a long time ago, and took to wearing a sling, which gently discouraged further inquiry.

 

The kids asked him whether Princess Shuri would build him a new arm. Bucky answered that another limb would just weigh him down, make them harder to catch. Despite what could've been construed as a vaguely threatening statement, the children took it with the jest that was intended. They lost their caution of him quickly, and visited most days.

 

It was nice not to be feared.

 

Bucky relearnt his balance; for so long he'd been compensating for the debilitating weight on his left side. Now it was gone he felt lighter, free-er.

 

But also weak. So -- hay bales.

 

The manual labour was good. T'Challa hadn't organised a run down place for him to live, but it still required maintenance. It had rudimentary plumbing, but he still had pull buckets of water from the river to wash his clothes. Holes that developed in the roof after rain needed re-thatching. A fallen tree broke some pailings in a fence that housed some goats. The goats had to be caught. Not the easiest thing to do one-handed, but the challenge was good for him.

 

He kept telling himself that when he was picking twigs out of his hair and cursing at a little brown and white kid who had slipped his grasp. The goat bleated cheerfully at him and trotted away.

 

Each day had a different goal, but the same over-reaching purpose: To keep his routine, learn how to belong, how to give back. To live as best he could. To love as best he could.

 

His first reunion with Steve was bittersweet. Word had been sent to wherever he was at the time that Bucky had been thawed and successfully de-triggered. A short missive came back to say that Steve was returning immediately.

 

Bucky decided against a meeting at the palace, preferring a home-ground advantage. He heard a truck pull up and walked outside to see Steve, looking rumpled and dirty, jumping out of the vehicle.

 

Bucky gave a sharp inhale of breath. Steve looked different; harder edges, hair a little longer, lower face covered in the beginnings of a dark beard. But as Steve walked towards him, Bucky could see the same furrows in his brow, the way that his thumb pressed rhythmically against his closed fist in a well-known anxious gesture. The hardness in his eyes was melting away with each step they got closer.

 

Steve stopped a few feet away, eyes scanning Bucky from head to toe. Bucky itched at the appraisal, wondering what Steve thought of him in his river-washed hair and comfortable clothes the locals made him.

 

"Bucky?" Steve said, voice soft with hope.

 

Bucky ran his hand through his hair self-consciously. "Hey, Steve," he answered, a smile making his eyes crinkle despite the nerves.

 

Steve wasted no time gathering him up in a tight hug. Bucky was held against his chest, stuttering with a silent sob or two. He did his best to return the affection, rubbing the centre of Steve's back with his hand.

 

He didn't offer anymore words, just tacit comfort. When the chest-heaving stopped, Steve pulled back enough to rest their foreheads together.

 

"Do I look okay?" Bucky asked, and Steve's breath hitched again, only this time with laughter.

 

"Yes, you vain son of a bitch."

 

Bucky ran a hand down the side of Steve's face, gently touching the beard. "I thought you were meant to be the polished one in this relationship."

 

Steve turned to place a soft kiss to the palm of Bucky's hand. "Na, I was always scrappy. You were the matinee idol." He gave Bucky a look filled with adoration. "Still are."

 

Steve didn't have long; Natasha and Sam were hunting extremists in South America, and Steve needed to rendezvous with them in a week, but a week was better than nothing.

 

Bucky showed Steve what his life was like, and maybe the city boy he'd known most of his life had changed, too, because Steve took to it like a duck to water. The goats loved him, save for the little brown and white kid, who seemed to have it in for everyone. The children thought he was a mobile jungle gym, but had the worrying habit of invariably popping up whenever something romantic was about to happen. Bucky had one emergency communicator that T'Challa and Shuri insist he keep, but he took great delight in the fact it stayed mostly silent and unused.

 

Steve's hard edges softened in Bucky's little home in Wakanda. They ignored the shower as it was much more fun to bathe in the river together, lying in the shallows with Bucky's arm wrapped protectively around his chest. At night, Bucky curled next to the human space heater that was Steve Rogers and felt something perilously close to contentment.

 

Steve asked Bucky about a new arm, but Bucky dismissed it. He said it would only get in the way. Steve wisely accepted the answer, and didn't question it.

 

It was hard to say goodbye to Steve again, moreso knowing he was leaving to harden his heart to the world once again. Steve and his friends were still considered fugitives by the World Security Council, even though they were helping at large by rooting out dangerous problems.

 

Bucky met Shuri in her lab at the palace on a semi-regular basis, where he underwent light physical and mental health-checks. Physically, he was fit and well, suffering no adverse affects from his short stint in cryogenic suspension. Mentally, his triggers were still inactive. It always made him nervous to run through the checks, but she made him smile or laugh, and everything always turned out.

 

There were some schematics for a new arm and some kind of leather body armour in a hologram off to the side, but Bucky walked right past it to ask Shuri how she was going with her latest tweak to T'Challa's Black Panther suit. Then they went to the kitchen for ice cream.

 

Steve visited another six times, on one of those occasions bringing Sam. He had the same weariness to his demeanour that Steve always arrived with. They met at the palace, where Sam spent a good few minutes giving him the hairy eyeball. Eventually, Sam offered his hand to shake. Bucky took it, they shook once, and then Sam announced he was going to take up T'Challa's offer of a personal tour of the capital, and left Steve to be taken home again by Bucky.

 

Bucky watched Steve go each time, more reluctant to leave but always determined to return. Their moments together were stolen, but it only made each and every one more precious.

 

The brown and white goat grew up and had a kid of her own. The locals taught him how to make cheese. Milking a goat with one arm, however, wasn't as easy as he was lead to believe.

 

Bucky still ended up on the ground with twigs in his hair, cursing.

 

He missed Steve, but didn’t have time to dwell on that most days. Strangely enough, Steve always seemed to show up just when Bucky was wondering where he was, and what he might be doing.

 

Life wasn't easy, but it was better and more satisfying than anything Bucky might've thought he deserved. To that end, he worked hard to maintain what had been given so freely to him, making sure he was occupied during the day. Bucky went to bed feeling tired, but otherwise useful.

 

The world moved in mysterious ways, though, as Bucky had become intimately aware of over the course of his prolonged and impossible life. One thing he was certain of was that this little existence he’d scraped and eked out for himself wouldn’t last. It was an awful thought, but he’d always been the pragmatic one, with Steve functioning as the dreamer.

 

And as he worked and lived day to day, Bucky got the strangest feeling that something was coming; _what_ he couldn’t be sure. Bucky wondered if he should mention the feeling to Shuri. It seemed silly, based on nothing but a mildly pessimistic viewpoint, and probably a significant portion of residual guilt.

 

For the first time he wondered about an arm, and whether having one would help in the future. He dismissed the thought as best he could.

 

With nothing else to do about the ephemeral feelings with no basis, Bucky threw himself into maintenance of his little property. It didn't stop the feeling, but did distract him.

 

When the sounds of a vehicle disturbed his manual labour, he expected Steve. Not the King, or General Okoye, accompanied by solemn-looking men carrying a case. Bucky’s legs felt weighted, and putting one foot in front of the other to go meet them a Herculean task.

 

He knew what was in the box long before the latches were flicked open.

 

The unsmiling features of his visitors told a story he had hoped he’d finished reading. However, Bucky knew this was a moment he expected to come.

 

He would see Steve again soon, but not to relax. Not to bask in stolen moments of happiness, give and receive comfort.

 

Bucky looked down dispassionately at the sleek limb in the case; dark grey-black and segmented, channels of gold breaking up its sections. It was a work of art, and Bucky could only imagine the time and effort Shuri had gone to design and manufacture such a tool — a weapon.

 

He didn’t need to know how heavy it was, what was required to attach it, what it could do. He knew his instincts had been correct and the time — at least momentarily — of peace was finished. He knew that whatever was happening was big enough to pull him into it, and that meant Steve and his team would probably be on their way, too.

 

With an audible exhale, Bucky flexed the fingers on his right hand. He only needed to know one thing.

 

Steeling himself, he asked, “Where’s the fight?"

 

**Author's Note:**

> So the details of the final scene are all from Sarah's and my memory. If anything is incorrect, please blame faulty brains. PS, Sarah proofed this like an amazing person and I can't believe she's real. You are amazing. 
> 
> If you have any thoughts or comments, as always, I would love to hear them. You know what to do. Likewise if you see any mistakes, feel free to let me know what you've caught. 
> 
> Finally, for those of you who are reading this and wondering where more Angel is a Centrefold and Fan the Flame are, please accept my humblest apologies. I have really had to kick my own ass over lots of things that I'd let slide over time and catch up on them like an adult. AN ADULT. Ugh. Also in the meantime, Sarah and I went to Hawaii together. Good news for FtF readers, we got the overall story arc for all of the next year sorted (that's 2017). There are LOTS of awesome things coming! And I hope that I can write them in a timely fashion. Thank you for the continued comments and kudos on that, and any other works of mine. You are kind and it makes my day when I get the notifications. 
> 
> Here's to being an adult and getting my shit sorted so I can hopefully write lots and lots more in the future! Love ya, Stucky fandom. You're quality. <3


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